Safer to be in combat than at home?

[Tiger]

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,311644,00.html


According to the raw figures, of the 2,380 members of the military who died during active duty in 1981, 1,524 were killed in accidents, 145 by homicide, 457 by illness and 241 from self-inflicted wounds. That compares with the 1,942 killed in 2005; of that number, 632 died from accidents, 739 from hostile action, 49 from homicide, 281 from illness, 150 from self-inflicted wounds and 72 whose causes of death were still pending. Eleven deaths in ’81 and 19 deaths in ’05 were classified as “undetermined.”

2005 break down:
Hostile Action:  739
Other:  1203

I've also seen similar results listed for the first Gulf War.  More service members in the States died during the deployment than died in the MidEast.

A history professor of mine in college also wrote a book on Vietnam, he compared the number of homicides in california to combat deaths in Vietnam.  Every year, CA was higher.

[Tac]

true but I think you need to realize that you ADD the non-combat deaths with the combat deaths to get the total dead per year.

If the KIA had stayed home chances are they wouldnt have been an accidental death.

[Dago]

How much war were we fighting in 1981???

[Tiger]

Originally posted by Dago
How much war were we fighting in 1981???

That's the point.  We weren't and service members death total was higher than when were fighting two in 2005.

[WMLute]

LIES!!!!!!!!

It's not possible!!!!!!

The evil boosch is causing untold death for our servicemen in Iraq!

IT IS NOT POSSIBLE for it to be more likely to get murdered in Detroit than in Baghdad!!!

I watch CNN and MSNBC all the time and THEY tell me you must be lying!!!!!

[Engine]

It's all well and good to comment on it online, but somehow I doubt anyone here would have the audacity to ask an audience of GIs whether they feel safer in Iraq or at home.

[Tiger]

Originally posted by Tiger
[url]

2005 break down:
Hostile Action:  739
Other:  1203

 

I'll add some Murder stats from 2006 from the FBI:

NY City:   596
LA:  480
Chicago:  468
Philly:  406
Detroit:  418

2005 Iraq and Afghanistan = 739
2006 NY and LA = 1076

[B@tfinkV]

how can you assume that total deaths in a city and total deaths in a war zone are even worth comparing together in raw format?

 you need to find the total population of the city and calculate that against the murders to find the % of murders per citizen and then do similar for the combat stats, and even then you wont find anything worthy of comparison between civil and military death rates.

youre trying to compare the death rates between chimps in the zoo and chimps in the jungle and say it means something.

[Dago]

Originally posted by Tiger
I'll add some Murder stats from 2006 from the FBI:

NY City:   596
LA:  480
Chicago:  468
Philly:  406
Detroit:  418

2005 Iraq and Afghanistan = 739
2006 NY and LA = 1076

While these look good at first glance, you have to consider the death rate per capita if you will.

Population of NYC in 2005 - 8.2 million

Population of American servicemen and women in Iraq 2006 - 135,000 +/-.

So, in NYC 2006, there was approximately 1 murder for every 13750 people.  In Iraq, there was one servicemember killed for every 164 serviceman or woman there.

I think the Iraq based servicemen and women would prefer to take their chances in NYC.

[WMLute]

Washington Post Source

Between March 21, 2003, when the first military death was recorded in Iraq, and March 31, 2006, there were 2,321 deaths among American troops in Iraq. Seventy-nine percent were a result of action by hostile forces. Troops spent a total of 592,002 "person-years" in Iraq during this period. The ratio of deaths to person-years, .00392, or 3.92 deaths per 1,000 person-years, is the death rate of military personnel in Iraq.

How does this rate compare with that in other groups? One meaningful comparison is to the civilian population of the United States. That rate was 8.42 per 1,000 in 2003, more than twice that for military personnel in Iraq.

The comparison is imperfect, of course, because a much higher fraction of the American population is elderly and subject to higher death rates from degenerative diseases. The death rate for U.S. men ages 18 to 39 in 2003 was 1.53 per 1,000 -- 39 percent of that of troops in Iraq. But one can also find something equivalent to combat conditions on home soil. The death rate for African American men ages 20 to 34 in Philadelphia was 4.37 per 1,000 in 2002, 11 percent higher than among troops in Iraq. Slightly more than half the Philadelphia deaths were homicides.

It's safte to be a serviceman in Iraq than to be, let's say, a gang member in Chicago, Ill.  There have been many cities in the U.S. where the per. capita murder rate has been much higher than what one would find in Iraq.

Where is the outrage for the deaths of African American men ages 20 to 34 in Philly?  Where are the front page headlines?  Why are the people in the U.S. jumping up and down and freaking out over subjects like the Murder Rate in D.C.?

I swear, people are not only sheep but are flat out morons.  (on the whole)

It amazes me how many swallow what is fed to them on the news and spew it back out w/o havin' the slightest understanding of what they are talking about, or the subject at hand.

[Dago]

Originally posted by WMLute
Washington Post Source


It's safte to be a serviceman in Iraq than to be, let's say, a gang member in Chicago, Ill.  There have been many cities in the U.S. where the per. capita murder rate has been much higher than what one would find in Iraq.

Where is the outrage for the deaths of African American men ages 20 to 34 in Philly?  Where are the front page headlines?  Why are the people in the U.S. jumping up and down and freaking out over subjects like the Murder Rate in D.C.?

I swear, people are not only sheep but are flat out morons.  (on the whole)

It amazes me how many swallow what is fed to them on the news and spew it back out w/o havin' the slightest understanding of what they are talking about, or the subject at hand.

Maybe people find value in the servicemens lives?

[lazs2]

engine... ask em if they feel safer with their squaddies and armed to the teeth in iraq or if they would feel safer walking the streets of DC alone at night and unarmed and you may not get the answer you want.

I know cause I have asked em.

lazs

[cav58d]

Yea...Those soldiers are a bunch of PANYS!  Too scared, and cant handle the mean streets of the US, so they take the easy way out, and join the military and go to Iraq to be safe!

Ya know, I spent the weekend in Manhattan last month...I even stubbed my toe on a curb!  I was injured, but none the less, I made it out alive!  Wheres my purple heart and medals of valor! soldiers...phhhhhhhhh.  You want real action?  Embed (sp) a team of reporters with me next time I visit urbania!

[john9001]

let us not get side tracked, what the study showed was that solders die even when there is no war going on.

[WMLute]

Originally posted by john9001
let us not get side tracked, what the study showed was that solders die even when there is no war going on.

It showed that MORE soldiers died when NOT @ war.  

(that year anyway)